This invention relates to the calibration of electronic sensors.
Electronic sensors are employed in a number of different fields of technology. Such sensors may be employed to detect changes in environmental parameters, such as atmospheric pressure, or may be employed to detect changes in forces applied to the object to which they are attached, for example.
Whilst there are very many different types of sensor, one problem common to most is that of temperature sensitivity. Variation of the sensor output with temperature can cause considerable difficulty both in terms of provision of sufficient accuracy and also in relation to the generation of erroneous warning signals.
One approach to compensate for temperature variations is to calibrate each sensor individually during manufacture. This means, however, a considerable increase in production costs.
In recent times an alternative approach to temperature compensation has been proposed. In this alternative approach the sensor itself or its associated circuitry is provided with means for calculating and providing an offset to the output of the sensor dependent upon the temperature. Such an approach requires mathematical modelling of the sensor output with respect to temperature. Such an approach has problems, however, in that the algorithm employed to model the sensor output requires complex division of high order functions in order to be able to provide accurate modelling. It will be appreciated that the requirement for division increases the compensation circuit complexity and increases processing time.